Former D.A. kicks out all White employees in favor of Blacks. Jury has found him guilty after numerous appeals and guess what? The city does not have the money in its coffers to cover the $3.7 million suit. Guess who is being considered to help cover the costs?
New Orleans taxpayers.
Nice!
Jordan: N.O. needs to bail out DA
The Times-Picayune
By Gwen Filosa
Staff writer
Only the city of New Orleans can pay off District Attorney Eddie Jordan’s $3.7 million debt to the employees he wrongly fired in 2003, his office says in documents filed at federal court.
Having exhausted — and lost — a series of appeals over the federal civil rights case that originated in 2003, Jordan says his budget can’t handle the verdict and that his only option is to persuade Mayor Ray Nagin to ask the City Council for the money owed to 36 workers who successfully sued him for employment discrimination.
A federal judge this week ruled that the award could come from assets of the district attorney’s office, refusing to place any more delays on the judgment. Interest on the award grows by $20,000 a month.
Plaintiffs are through waiting, their attorneys said Tuesday, warning once again that they will seek to seize assets of the district attorney’s office — from payroll accounts to cars — if Jordan’s office does not pay up.
[SNIP]
Jordan, the city’s first African-American district attorney, violated employment discrimination laws when after taking office he ordered the wholesale firing of white employees and replaced almost all of them with black workers, a jury found more than two years ago.
Jordan wanted U.S. District Court Judge Stanwood Duval to freeze the $3.7 million award until the city has a chance to approve a new budget that includes enough money to pay off the legal debt, but that didn’t happen.
[SNIP]
Jordan’s office wants the City Council to add the $3.7 million to the 2008 annual budget to cover the judgment. The DA’s office lacks the property or cash to pay the judgment, a top aide said, and tapping its assets would provide only a fraction of the $3.7 million, but disrupt the entire criminal justice system in New Orleans.
“The disruption would be so severe that it would virtually shut down the DA’s office and render it impossible (for it) to perform its functions,” said Val Solino, an executive first assistant to Jordan, in an affidavit filed at federal court this month.
“If the DA’s office is forced to close, even for a short period, the Orleans Criminal District Court may find itself without sufficient assistant district attorneys to prosecute approximately 2,500 cases, which are currently awaiting trial,” Solino said.
And if paychecks were to bounce, the most experienced prosecutors probably would quit, Solino said. (more…)
#
Sphere: Related Content
